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Price Return Performance for the SWF Strategic Index Year Annual Price Return 2010 3.04% 2009 34.60% 2008 -33.80% Since inception -8.23% Source: Park Alpha – Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute

Download Global Hypermarket Comparables What is a hypermarket? A hypermarket is like a big-box store. They focus on high volume and low margin sales. They have extremely large footprints. Examples are Wal-Mart Supercenters or France’s Carrefour.  Already popular in the occidental nations, our analysts see it spreading in other parts of the world.  At Park Alpha, we see a continued global trend of the development of more hypermarkets, especially in emerging economies.

Estimates by the Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, SWFs have finally reached the US$ 4 trillion in assets. Just recently, Norway GPFG published that they topped over 3 trillion kroner for first time. The Norwegian sovereign wealth fund is now $512 billion in assets. This is a huge milestone in the importance and growth of sovereign wealth funds. Oil based sovereign wealth funds still hold the lead over non-commodity based SWFs. “The fund has grown faster and bigger than most people expected since getting its first inflow of capital in May 1996,” says Yngve Slyngstad, chief executive officer of Norges Bank Investment Management (NBIM), which manages the fund. Read more about: Norway GPFG Read more about: Fund Rankings...

What is Mean-Variance Optimization? Basically, it is a process of choosing a set of portfolios that have the highest return for given levels of risk. Many institutional investors believe that designing the highest returning portfolio of assets cannot be done by human intuition alone.  The efficient points in the Return-Risk graph are called the Efficient Frontier. Reasons for massive adoption Pushed by Academics – Quantitative in Nature (appears Scientific) Objective Process-Oriented Single Solution Outcome Some Key Issues with MVO 1.  All inputted assumptions are based on historical data and are subjective. Basically, it is garbage in, garbage out.  Inputs must be solidly tested for all types of economic and political environments.  There is tremendous...

Private equity real estate is one of the oldest asset classes that investors can access. There are two primary return components in real estate, cash flow and appreciation. Many managers involved with private equity real estate will employ leverage to enhance portfolio performance; this does have a downside when markets are not favorable or when the consumer economy is stressed. Private equity real estate is not for everyone. Investors who need liquidity should begin with publicly traded instruments like REITs and CMBS. The advantages of public ownership are generally sourced from transparency and liquidity. Some of the cons of investing with REITs include being subject to the daily market fluctuations in the stock market; meaning the security price...